New releases

★★½ A.C.O.D. The title stands for “Adult Children of Divorce,” apparently a subject director/co-writer Stu Zicherman knows all too well. A slim, predictable, but often very funny light comedy of emotional angst, the movie stars Adam Scott and is blessed with a cast of pro farceurs like Richard Jenkins, Catherine O’Hara, Jane Lynch, and Amy Poehler. (90 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★★½ Captain Phillips An extraordinarily gripping movie based on events that took place on the container ship Maersk Alabama in April 2009. Director Paul Greengrass creates an aura of urgency so powerful that we temporarily forget what we know and hold our breaths for two-plus hours of tightening suspense. Tom Hanks and the magnetic Barkhad Abdi star. In English and Somali, with subtitles. (134 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★ Linsanity This documentary about NBA point guard Jeremy Lin, the Asian-American Harvard grad who briefly became a sports-world sensation in 2012, is lively but overlong. A little game footage can go a long way; and a lot of game footage, no matter how good, goes a very long way. Also, the amiable and modest young man we meet isn’t the compelling figure he is on the court. (88 min., PG) (Mark Feeney)

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★★½ Machete Kills Director Robert Rodriguez keeps the “Grindhouse” dream alive. Craggy-faced Danny Trejo returns as hyperviolently vengeful tough guy Machete. He’s enlisted to take down an unhinged Mexican revolutionary (Demian Bichir) by an f-bombing US president (Charlie Sheen). It’s not the sort of obsessive stylistic throwback we might expect, but more a conceptual throwback, to days when low-budget mavericks gleefully deemed any crazy idea worth tossing into a movie. (107 min., R) (Tom Russo)

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★★★ Muscle Shoals The documentary takes its name from the small northern Alabama town with not one but two legendary recording studios. The focus is on music producer Rick Hall and the legendary crew of backup musicians known as the Swampers. The film can be annoyingly slick and overproduced. Oh well. The music and the musicians are what matter, and they’re often magnificent. (PG, 111 min.) (Mark Feeney)

★ Romeo and Juliet Apparently aimed at a youth audience weaned on “Gossip Girl,” this insipid snoozer cuts most of Shakespeare’s speeches, invents stupid new dialogue, and features young actors who are clueless and older pros who overact. It’s a movie that only a 13-year-old girl with an English paper due could love. And she’d still get a D. (118 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★½ We Are What We Are A secretive fundamentalist family in upstate New York begins to reveal its secrets when the mother dies and relentless rains flood the area. Based on the Mexican horror film “Somos lo que hay” (2010), this ambitious, beautifully shot, and sometimes chilling thriller has too much on its plate, ladling on a mythic and anthropological subtext and a critique of patriarchal religion. (105 min., R) (Peter Keough)